Protection 1

ROMEOVILLE, Ill., and LAS VEGAS—Protection 1 officially introduced I-View Now, its new cloud-based video verification service, a few weeks ago at ASIS. But Pro 1’s Don Young is so convinced that it’s going to be a winner, he’s planning to expand the offer to include hosted video by the end of the year.

It’s been a busy two days for Amy Canfield (the new lead editor for our sister publication Security Director News) and I here in Philly at the ASIS show.

Since Sept. 10, the first day of ASIS, was Amy’s fifth day on the job, she accompanied me to most of my appointments that day. She did have a chance to speak to a group of end users at the Honeywell booth. Here’s her update on that and she was flying solo on Day 2--check out her blog for highlights of her day, including a tour of the security operation of the Philadelphia Convention Center with integrator Schneider Electric.

Here are some highlights from my conversations on the show floor on Day 1 and Day 2. Check back tomorrow for Day 3.

DIEBOLDAt the Diebold booth I met with Tony Byerly, who’d just completed his first 90 days as head of security at Diebold, along with Diebold IT chief Jeremy Brecher and Felix Gonzalez, who earlier this summer left Stanley to join Byerly’s senior staff as the newly appointed VP for strategic initiatives and business development in electronic.security.

Diebold was the first of several integrators I spoke to who said that one focus for them will be the financial services vertical. It’s not a surprise for Diebold, who's parent company is the largest ATM provider.

Byerly touted Diebold’s long history, the company’s reputation for steady, high quality service and technology know-how as advantages in the marketplace. He also noted the shifting competitive landscape and said Diebold stands out for a variety of reasons including the fact that “we’re a strategic in the space—we’re not backed by private equity.” He called Diebold the “nation’s only pure-play integrator,” pointing out that “we don’t have an adjacent manufacturing arm.”

Brecher talked about being “in the value position” with service and technology. “We invest time and resources to create solutions instead of packaging solutions,” he said. Diebold works to leverage a customer’s existing infrastructure, and customers have a “single method to connect to Diebold … a single customer portal … the entire web experience is easy to manage.”

PROTECTION 1Protection 1 had some big news. Click here to see the story about a big acquisition Pro 1 made. It’s a systems integrator with staff that's experienced and certified to work on networks. With the new staff/capabilities, Jamie Haenggi told me, Pro 1 will be taking on jobs it would have walked away from in the past.

STANLEY CSSStanley announced that John Nemerofsky is the new VP of Global Solutions, and that there's a new phalanx of vertical market leaders. There’s other news as well. Stanley is bringing together three business units: the CSS team, the Mechanical Solutions team, and the Security and Automatic Door team.

The teams would work together in the past, but it “would happen more through accident,” Nemerovsky told me. Now, there’s a “process where we’ll work together to pull together the best possible solution for the client.”

And there are specific solutions for each vertical market. This infrastructure will be appreciated by global accounts customers who “are looking for consistency in deliverables … the same deliverables, billing, systems they have in Chile [for example], that they have in New York City, Barcelona, Tokyo and Paris.”

JOHNSON CONTROLSI spoke to Tammee Thompson at Johnson Controls, who told me that ASIS is the show where she and others "take a break from making the quarter" (but only briefly she emphasized) to check out technology. She had an army of employees out scouring the floor “looking for the latest and greatest to pull into our technology stack.” Specifically, JCI is looking for access control solutions, VMS, PSIM and ID management solutions.

RED HAWKI also had a chance to chat with Mike Snyder of Red Hawk. He said that the company is finishing up “moving the infrastructure [network and IT systems] out of UTC,” and officially began its rebranding as Red Hawk in the past couple of weeks.

Snyder also talked about focusing on the financial vertical market, saying that the next wave of retail banking will not be branch operations, but ATMs. He believes Red Hawk will have a leg up on the competition because his staff has deep experience in the financial sector, some originally coming from Mosler. The company also has a partnership with ATM provider NCR.

AXIS COMMUNICATIONSAt this show, Axis Communications was showing many new products and solutions, many targeted toward the fewer-than-16 channel market. (Look for a story next week about a visit I made to Axis H.Q in Massachusetts a couple of weeks ago.) When I asked Fredrik Nilsson about all the talk I was hearing about the financial vertical, he noted that Axis had an ATM with four cameras in its booth. Nilsson said that banking is a conservative vertical that is finally making the leap from analog to IP. “Education was the first, then retail, and now it’s banking’s turn.”

He agreed with Snyder’s point that the new wave of retail banking is moving from the branch to ATMs. "When was the last time you went into a bank branch?," he asked. "I refinanced my house online."

Coincidentally, Axis is also in the process of hiring a business development specialist for the financial vertical, he said.

AVIGILONAt the Avigilon press conference, the company introduced the new version of its software. Keith Maret said Avigilon took inspiration from Google, Apple and Facebook in the development of this software. The cool thing is that the software can respond to voice commands and body movements. COO Andrew Martz demoed this capability and it was like watching a command center staffer play squash on a Nintendo Wii. The command center screens zoomed and focused in response to voice commands and hand gestures. This feature is in the alpha phase. “We’re gauging the interest in it,” he said.

Maret summarized the features thus: crash-proof enterprise server management, where all servers are grouped together; a “collaborative mode” where more than one person can log into video feed and manipulate the video in real time; and intelligent virtual matrix that “allows you to turn video walls to life.”

HONEYWELL

At Honeywell, in addition to talking to the end user committee, I spoke with Scott Harkins about Honeywell’s emphasis on the “connected business," where the access, video and intrusion systems are tied into other systems such as: HR systems, radars [in super high-end port applications] POS for example. The emphasis of course, as we heard from nearly every manufacturer at the show, is on mobility. Honeywell’s newest ProWatch 4.0 access control has a new mobile offering that enables remote access from iPads, phones and other devices. It’s also integrated with wireless locks, something Harkins is very excited about, because it’s so much cheaper to install, maintain and manage.

FOOTBALL

The traffic on Day 1 was the lightest I’ve seen in a while at an ASIS show. It picked up considerably on Day 2, but it was still moderate traffic to my eye.

Why? Well, there’s the economy of course. Things may be looking up, but one manufacturer told me that people who’ve got money in the bank are keeping it there. They’re still cutting corners on travel—making this a one- or two-day show, rather than three.

I also heard that having the show in Philly meant that tri-staters could take the train in for Day 2 and 3.

And, I understand there may have been some football-related reasons that folks weren’t here on Monday.

Football.

I can think of about 80 things I’d rather do [including laundry] than watch football on a gorgeous fall day, but if football will help roll back the expectation that people should travel to work events on Sundays, count me in.

PROVO, Utah—Vivint is considering a sale with final bids due later this month, according to a Reuters report. The report said the home automation/home security company could be valued at as much as $2 billion, and that among three private equity groups looking at the company is GTCR—owner of Protection 1, one of the nation’s largest security companies.

ROMEOVILLE, Ill.—Protection 1 acquired two commercially focused companies in August, deals that build density in Alabama and New Mexico and fit into Protection 1’s drive to grow its commercial/national accounts division into a $100 million business.

YARDLEY, Pa.—LifeShield Security’s new relationship with Protection 1 not only provides monitoring for LifeShield’s customers, but installation options that could attract new customers who don’t want to install the company’s DIY home security systems themselves, according to a LifeShield executive.

Yardley, Pa.-based LifeShield Security offers wireless digital home security systems that are easy to install and are professionally monitored. And now monitoring and installation for LifeShield customers is going to be provided by Protection 1, the second largest security company in the United States.

LifeShield today announced a new partnership with that industry leader. Here’s more from the company’s June 6 release:

LifeShield Security is pleased to announce a new strategic relationship with Protection 1, the second largest security company in the United States, that will leverage the five fully redundant UL certified central stations of Protection 1 by offering their services to LifeShield customers as "monitored by Protection 1."

With customers in all 50 states, LifeShield has built a significant national brand using innovative products, value pricing, and strong endorsements from Dan Marino and John Timoney, America's top cop. Protection 1 is known for its highly rated customer service and local presence in 60 key markets. The relationship will leverage the best attributes of both companies and accelerate residential subscriber growth.

"LifeShield Security has grown rapidly over the last couple of years, but we believe we need a local presence to expand our opportunity to grow even faster. Protection 1 has one of the industry's best reputations for local service," said Michael Hagan, CEO of LifeShield. "This relationship with Protection 1 is a win-win-win for LifeShield, Protection 1, and our customers. We both have an over 95% customer satisfaction rating, and together we give customers peace of mind with LifeShield's superior technology and Protection 1's state of the art monitoring centers."

"We are thrilled to partner with LifeShield Security," said Tim Whall, President and CEO, Protection 1. "They have brought affordable interactive services to the industry through their IP- and cellular-based products and mobile applications. Their team has a great track record in high growth Direct-to-Consumer Marketing. We think this industry is entering a new phase of growth and these types of strategic partnerships help both companies gain larger market share in a growing industry."

NAPERVILLE, Ill.—Tony Byerly, president of Stanley CSS North America and United Kingdom, is leaving the company, according to an internal announcement this week, Security Systems News has learned. Byerly will be replaced by Martin Schnurr, who is currently president of Stanley Hydraulic Tools.